The purpose of the final two chapters is to develop some basic starting principles for acquiring a fundamentally ‘nineteenth-century’ approach to violin playing. Whilst it is obvious that such a reductive aim has the potential to ride roughshod over myriad chronological and geographical differences, there is virtue in trying to encapsulate the essence of fundamental technique and performance style. The aim is to encourage players to have a basic understanding of these matters which could then become adapted to a range of projects. There is clearly no substitute for actually doing the practice-asresearch work. What I offer here, then, are some thoughts as though the reader had come to my studio for some initial guidance. One method of doing this (which could be done on a ‘self-learning’ basis) would be, simply, to alert the learner to sensible starting points. This is, however, no small task, and whatever the good intentions, one may well founder on the basis of a lack of direction, incentive, and time.

We shall use Louis Spohr's Violinschule as a case in point. Knowing full well that Spohr's approach is restrictive but at the same time influential, as intimated earlier in this book, this seems a sensible starting point, especially since Spohr's teaching is chronologically suitable to much of this handbook’s timeframe, and because his writing scarcely ever contradicts other sources considered here.

The main factor separating this ‘retrospective’ learning paradigm from the historical past is the fact that, unlike a nineteenth-century beginner, anyone investigating this in the context of this book can already play the violin. Going back and ‘relearning’ from foundational principles is a hard act indeed; habits form over time and become automatic, and any adjustment to them carries risk: given the vulnerability of any performer on stage, it is little surprise that many are somewhat ‘risk averse’! Nonetheless, we should not give up before we begin. Over time ‘Baroque’ specialisms, for example, have become normative, and college players routinely learn to play ‘Baroque violin’ as though it is a different instrument to ‘modern violin’. But here we have some problems. Some aspects of nineteenth-century technique and style allow ‘romantic violin’ to be seen as a separate area of activity in a similar way.